


can i call you peej

by whenyouheldtheknife



Series: soul mate tattoos au [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexuality Spectrum, Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Phone Calls & Telephones, Possibly Unrequited Love, Soulmates, Tattoos, Unrequited, Unrequited Lust, again i'm very sorry, read with caution pj is an awkward fuck, the word unrequited doesn't look real anymore, well he's more grey aro than full out aro but ya know, whoopsies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 13:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3251870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenyouheldtheknife/pseuds/whenyouheldtheknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>soul mate tattoos au series; can be read as a prequel to "i'm so sorry". pj liguori thinks he's gotten the last of his tattoos when the third one appears shortly after he turns eighteen. little does he know, he's got a surprise coming that wasn't expected. how he handles it is, well... a bit awkwardly, to be honest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can i call you peej

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this is not what anyone asked for, i asked myself for it and god damn did i fucking deliver  
> 2) uhhhh just as a warning there's like masturbation where the other person doesn't know it's happening which is why this is rated mature, plus swear words...  
> 3) come say hi on [tumblr?](http://bisexualdanhowell.tumblr.com)

PJ turned eighteen a year and a half before Dan did, so naturally, he got his tattoos first. He had only been expecting one to show up, and instead, PJ got a total of four tattoos, each one different from the next, and all on different parts of his body. 

The first to appear was there when he woke up on his eighteenth birthday, a small and soft-looking sentence: _do you need help?_ It was on the inside of his left forearm, just below the crease of his elbow. When PJ saw it, he ran his fingers over it slowly and smiled, liking how it was minuscule and sweet, almost timid in manner. 

The second tattoo appeared a few days later, and PJ wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t caught sight of himself in the mirror in the small washroom down the hall from his dorm. This tattoo was on his left hip, the text cramped and compact, and it only read, _okay, what the fuck._ PJ laughed when he saw it, slapping a hand to it and rubbing the slightly-raised writing, wondering what on earth he would end up doing to deserve that one. 

He almost missed the third one, though: when PJ was home on break, Dan had pointed it out to him. “Why does it say ‘whoops’ on the back of your neck with an ellipses after it?” he’d asked, poking at it. A slight shiver shook down PJ’s spine at the touch of Dan’s finger and he’d craned his neck, trying to see it. True to Dan’s word, it was there. Once he’d made Dan take a picture of it, PJ looked at it and tried to figure out why on earth he had a third tattoo and why it said the word _whoops…_ of all things, let alone in an elegant script. That one had a story behind it and he couldn’t wait to find out what it was. 

After receiving the third tattoo, PJ had had to do a lot of research to figure out why he had more than one tattoo. He’d eventually discovered that some people had more than one soul mate, and while they _could_ all be romantic soul mates, platonic soul mates were also a thing that happened. It was news to PJ; they had never been taught about platonic soul mates in school or even in the mandated university course on soul mates. (To be fair, he hadn't paid much attention, as the course was jam-packed with a bunch of people who had either just gotten their tattoo or were about to get it, but PJ was sure he would remember hearing about that, as it was so different from what was considered normal.) It made sense to PJ, though, the concept of platonic soul mates. He had always valued platonic relationships over romantic ones, only having dated one girl for a few months in year eleven, and he had built platonic friendships more easily than any romantic endeavors he may have entertained. (The platonic soul mates thing also made sense to PJ because he was asexual and probably a bit aromantic as well, if he stopped and thought about it, and so he didn’t think a romantic or sexual soul mate would ever really be the right fit for him.) 

What didn’t make sense happened a year later, when the fourth tattoo appeared. 

\- - -

It was Dan’s eighteenth birthday when PJ woke up with his hair matted to his face by sweat, his clothes uncomfortably stuck to his skin for the same reason, and with his right leg feeling like it was on fire. He was back home for break and disoriented when he first woke up, wondering if he had left his heated blanket on for too long (it got a bit cold in his room, no matter the time of year) before realizing that his blankets and sheets were tangled around his feet and mostly on the floor. 

“Shit, shit, ow!” he almost shouted, biting on his tongue in his haste to scramble to a sitting position and try to figure out what was happening. He leaned over and flicked his bedside lamp on, casting a pale yellow glow onto his body. His sleep-boxers were rumpled and there was a faint outline of words on the leg that was in pain. PJ grimaced and gingerly pressed the pads of his fingers to the words, immediately yelping and withdrawing his hand as if he had been burned. He glared at the now-red patch of skin on his leg before glancing over at the clock. It was just about nine in the morning, later than PJ would normally sleep, but too early for him to justify calling Dan -- and on Dan’s _birthday,_ no less -- to freak out about this development with him. 

Was a new tattoo showing up? That’s what it looked like, but PJ was nineteen now, halfway to being twenty, and he knew without having to think about it that this was unnatural. Nobody got any of their soul mate tattoos past the age of eighteen: sure, some people’s tattoos didn’t show up until they were _almost_ nineteen, but at that point they hadn’t yet turned another year older. PJ had never heard of a single case of -- 

Wait. Yes, yes he had. A horrible realization crossed PJ’s mind and he reached for his phone that was plugged in beside the bed, squeezing his eyes shut briefly as his leg gave a particularly painful throb. He swiped to open the lock screen, dread settling in his stomach as he quickly typed in the symptoms to his current problem. He scanned the articles, looking for one in particular, and tapped the link once he had found it. PJ skimmed the words quickly, noting that he had every symptom listed: a burning, throbbing, and/or aching sensation in the affected area, words beginning to appear, redness of the affected skin, and the fact that he was no longer eighteen. 

PJ set his phone down and put his hands over his face, scrubbing down it and resting his chin in his palm. That was it, then, wasn’t it. He had an unrequited soul mate. 

\- - -

He spent the next hour and a half lying in bed, gritting his teeth every so often as a new wave of pain would wash over him, trying to learn as much as he could about this whole unrequited soul mate business. From what PJ could understand through his pain-fogged brain, it was actually somewhat common for unrequited soul mates to occur, be it because the other person simply wasn’t destined to be your soul mate, or because they already had one and didn’t need another, or they were with someone else, but it wasn’t talked about due to the social stigma of being without a soul mate. And PJ knew that that was idiotic, that plenty of people didn’t have soul mates; the odds weren’t so outlandish that someone could have no soul mate at all. But as he scrolled through forum after forum of people lamenting about their lack of requited soul mate(s), PJ felt a strange sense of hopelessness. Half of the people didn’t even know who their unrequited soul mate was and he wondered if he would ever know his. 

The pain had started to subside around eleven-thirty, maybe closer to a quarter to noon, and PJ chanced a look down at his leg, noticing with shock that the words were there, bold and in handwriting that looked vaguely familiar. _Can I call you Peej?_ it read, and PJ pressed his fingertips to it, feeling an odd jolt run from his upper thigh, up his spine, and back down to coil in the pit of his stomach. That question even looked familiar, but PJ knew that he wouldn’t be able to place it without really thinking about it, and he felt exhausted, like he was ready to go back to sleep despite only being awake for three hours. 

PJ’s phone suddenly buzzed to life in his hand and he glanced down at it, seeing Dan’s ridiculous contact picture that made it look like he was trapped inside the phone. With a smile, he swiped the phone open and answered the call, “Hi, Dan.” 

“Why hasn’t my tattoo come in yet?” Dan whined down the line. 

PJ chuckled and settled into his pillows, resting his body against the headboard as he sat up a bit more so that he wouldn’t be lying down when he was talking. “Good morning to you too, birthday boy.” He could almost hear Dan’s lower lip stick out in his signature pout, the one he would take pictures with for fun and occasionally pull out for serious uses, such as this one. “No sign of it yet?” he asked. 

Dan sighed. “No, not yet.” He paused and PJ waited, knowing that Dan sometimes needed a moment or two to gather his thoughts. “What if… what if I don’t have a soul mate?” he asked, his voice suddenly very small in PJ’s ear. 

PJ frowned, tutting softly into his end of the receiver at the thought. “Dan, you definitely have a soul mate, okay? If anyone out there deserves to have one, it’s you. Any person would be really freakin’ blessed to be able to say that you’re their soul mate.” 

There was a short silence on the phone and the soft sound of Dan’s breathing evening out, followed by shuffling and then a sniffle that was almost inaudible. “Thanks, Peej. You’re the best.” 

Without any warning, PJ’s world suddenly narrowed down to the sound of the nickname that Dan had given him when they first met. It was playing on repeat in his head, the way that Dan said his name, and it distorted into a sound that made PJ shift uncomfortably where he was sitting, a strange heat curling up from underneath his newest tattoo and settling into his stomach. “Wasn’t that,” PJ paused and swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, “wasn’t that my first-ever nickname?” It was. He knew it was. He had to know if Dan knew. 

“Yeah, remember? I was so embarrassing when I was little!” Dan laughed. “I asked you if I could call you Peej, remember?” 

PJ took in a sharp breath and looked down at the tattoo, his fingers splayed over the words as if trying to hide them, even though he knew that Dan couldn’t see them now, couldn’t know that he was the reason PJ had woken up sweating and distressed and in pain with the words of an unrequited soul mate being etched into his skin from the inside-out. “Yeah, I… I remember.” He bit at his lip as the ache in his tattoo started up again, though this time it was distinctly less painful and a lot more… pleasant, much to PJ’s chagrin. 

“That’s sort of a weird question to ask, though, unless you’re getting sentimental on me,” Dan replied. He sounded simultaneously too far and too close to PJ for any sort of comfort, especially as he suddenly gripped at his thigh, his teeth digging into his bottom lip in an effort to contain the sound that threatened to escape. Yeah, that wasn’t so painful anymore. 

PJ was asexual: he wasn’t exactly _repulsed_ by sex, he was rather neutral to the idea, but he knew without a doubt that he’d never want to have sex with anyone or be responsible for anyone else’s sexual needs. That didn’t mean that PJ didn’t “take care of himself”, so to speak, quite the opposite: it was just the idea of other people being involved that made PJ feel a bit ill. This was why it was embarrassing for him to admit the reality of his currently uncomfortable situation: PJ was really, _really_ turned on right now. Because the tattoo was throbbing on his thigh. Because of Dan and the fact that Dan’s voice and the sounds of him breathing were in PJ’s ear. And now his hand was creeping under the waistband of his sleep-boxers to press the heel of his palm roughly against himself, trying to calm down. 

“Peej?” Dan asked, uncertainty coloring his voice, and PJ _wanted_ with a fierceness that he hadn’t known he possessed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to poke fun or anything, it’s fine if you wanna reminisce, I mean, I did just turn eighteen so now I’ve joined the ranks of old folk like yourself.” 

PJ shook his head before remembering that Dan couldn’t see him and responded, “No, it’s fine, you’re fine.” His hand was curled loosely around the base of his cock now and he tightened his grip as Dan let out a dramatized sigh of relief. God, this was bad. He was a bad friend. Shit. “I have to go, though, gotta wrap your present.” That was a lie; the present was wrapped neatly and stuffed underneath PJ’s bed. “Call you later?” he asked, and waited for Dan to say bye before ending the call and chucking his phone across the room, not caring what it hit as he tilted his head back and let out a choked-off moan. 

He lifted his hand to his mouth, licking his palm and tasting himself before shoving his hand back into his boxers and getting off hard and as quick as he could, coming with his lip caught between his teeth and a strangled-sounding, “Fuck, _Dan,_ fuck,” accidentally leaving his throat as he came. 

It took PJ a minute to collect himself, to force himself to lean over and clean himself up with tissues that he wadded up and threw in the trashcan partway across the room before he could think about what he’d just done. That was unusual, as in it had never happened before: PJ had never once consciously thought about Dan in a sexual or romantic way; they had been best friends since childhood and it would be too weird for PJ to even consider that. (He’d had a dream once, but it was only the one time, and he’d dismissed it afterwards simply because he’d spent the whole day with Dan, so it was only natural that the other boy would show up in his dreams.) He was considering getting up to rescue his phone when he remembered something he’d seen on the message boards, something from a person who had discovered who their unrequited soul mate was. A similar experience had happened to them, and PJ closed his eyes to recall the image of the message: a bit of plain black text explaining what had happened and how freaked out the original poster was, and a few other people trying to calm them down and explain that it could happen when you came into contact with the other person or talked with them. PJ remembered reading about having a “deep bond” with the soul mate and he inwardly cursed, opening his eyes again and looking across the room to where his phone had landed. 

He'd have to get up, get his phone, take a shower, and make something to eat before he could call Dan back. PJ would have to come up with a really good excuse as to why he’d hung up before doing their usual goodbye ritual when they’d been talking on the phone, but he would need to be collected enough to do so. 

With a heavy sigh, PJ stood on shaky legs and made his way to the bathroom, scooping up his phone along the way. He turned the tap on and let the water steam up the mirror before stepping in, letting the heat and pressure of the spray get the thoughts out of his head. There was a way to explain it to Dan without saying what had really happened, because as much as PJ hated keeping things from his best friend, there was one fact about the entire situation that he just couldn’t ignore, even if it was hard to swallow. 

He could never tell Dan. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) i am sO SORRY. LIKE. ACTUALLY SORRY FOR ONCE.  
> 2) i hope i can be forgiven??  
> 3) with any luck phil's will be next, like how he got it and everything. this is a series now because fuck the police i do what i want even if that means ignoring my coursework.  
> 4) please please please lemme know what you think; i thrive off of your comments


End file.
